Instant messaging services have significantly impacted the way in which people may communicate with each other. Instant messaging services may include services such as AIM, GOOGLE TALK, and WINDOWS LIVE MESSENGER. Such services may provide users with advantages over traditional telecommunication and email services. For example, instant messaging services may allow a user to manage several chat sessions with multiple people at one time. Various instant messaging services may provide users with the ability to manage multiple communications and chat sessions.
Some instant messaging services may show status indicators that, provide users with status information about their contacts. Such status indicators may also provide information about a user's own status. Instant messaging services may provide status indicators such as “online”, “away”, or “off” to indicate which contacts may be available for communication. Users may also make themselves appear offline to contacts with whom they do not wish to communicate. Some services may provide users with the option of renaming their status indicators. For example, a user may rename their “away” status indicator to “at lunch” or “in a meeting.”
Status settings and indicators may not, however, provide users with the ability to effectively manage instant message communications. For example, if a user's status indicator shows “idle” during a meeting, an inappropriate message may still appear. Other types of instantaneous notifications may also appear at inconvenient times. For example, while giving a presentation, an anti-virus software message may appear to prompt a user to update their anti-virus software. Traditional messaging services may not provide users with the ability to manage messages and/or notifications that arrive at inopportune times.